Lloyd W. Bertaud
American aviator (1895–1927)
Lloyd Wilson Bertaud (September 20, 1895 – September 6, 1927) was an American aviator. Bertaud was selected to be the copilot in the WB-2 Columbia attempting the transatlantic crossing for the Orteig Prize in 1927. Aircraft owner Charles A. Levine wanted to fly in his place, and an injunction by Bertaud against Levine prevented the flight. Aviator Charles Lindbergh won the prize.
Biography
Bertaud was born in Alameda, California on September 20, 1895. As a boy, he built and flew in a glider from Popular Mechanics plans. He was a licensed pilot at the age of 18. In World War I, Bertaud served in the U.S. Army Air Service as a lieutenant. In August 1922, he married Helen Virginia Lent in a ceremony performed by pilot Belvin Maynard during a seaplane flight over the Hudson River.
On September 6, 1927, Bertaud and fellow air-mail pilot James DeWitt Hill flipped to see who would pilot the Fokker monoplane named Old Glory, and Hill won.
“Lloyd W. Bertaud” enters the record as american aviator (1895–1927). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lloyd, Bertaud and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lloyd W. Bertaud” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.